Investment Matters: Single-Tenant Star

Since his selection as a CPE Star to Watch, Patrick Luther has emerged as one of the nation’s top net lease investment brokers. Image courtesy of SRS Realty Partners

Patrick Luther has been on our radar for most of the past decade. Back in 2015, he was named a CPE Star to Watch, one of the young professionals who represent the rising generation of industry leaders.

The following year, he joined SRS, where he and his longtime business partner, Matthew Mousavi, co-founded the firm’s Net Lease Retail Advisory Group. Since then, Patrick has earned recognition as a top net lease investment adviser.

Luther is the very definition of a fast starter. He started getting interested in the real estate business while he was still in high school, (“It’s all my mom’s fault,” he jokes). By the time he was 19, he’d already earned his residential sales license, and found time to work as an analyst while he was studying finance at Arizona State.

Starting his brokerage career during the Great Financial Crisis, Luther found that his apprenticeship as a leasing agent was invaluable experience for a career in investment sales. Today’s tough environment, he says, demands not just technical knowledge but outstanding versatility, problem-solving and people skills.

Asked for advice to new brokerage professionals, he stresses the importance of old-school practices, which he maintains are all the more important in the digital age. As he puts it, “You can’t just run a brokerage business sitting at a computer or on a phone.”

Highlights of this episode include:

• Inspiration for a CRE career in high school (2:49)
• A foot in the door during the GFC (4.03)
• Why leasing is “where the rubber meets the road” (5:23)
• Trends to watch in retail and net lease (6:58)
• Navigating the bid-ask gap (9:10)
• Lending, borrowing and the quest for capital (13:02)
• Making sense of cap rates (17:09)
• How healthy competition, mentorship and learning from peers intersect (19:56)
• Brokers’ changing roles in tough times (23:00)
• The timeless value of old-school business practices (27:00)
• Off the clock: “the greatest luxury on Earth” (31:43)

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